Her,
My name is Tzianeng or Txiabneeb. I am a Hmong language teacher at the
first Hmong Charter School in MN and, perhaps, in the nation. It was
first chartered as ACORN Dual Language Academy in 1996 and renamed
later on to the current name of Achieve Language Academy. The Hmong
parents that saw the needs to chartered such a school that nurture
diversity initiated and now we have Hmong and Spanish as the two
language focuses here. Our school started out with about 60%% Hmong and
40%% others, but now we have flipped flop. I too believe in the
diversity of the community and that a Hmong chartered schools and that
we owed to our children for the reality they will face is what they
see in their community and schools; diversity by all means is more
than just skin deep; Hmong diversity alone is already so vast to name
and fully understand...
You seem to have lots of experiences and aspiration in academia. At
your earliest convenience please shoot me an email so that we can
discuss further on how we can best meet the needs of our Hmong
community.
Thank you in advance for your consideration...
-Tzianeng
txiabneebatgmail.com
651.238.5300
On Mar 17, 1:45 pm, her...@
hotmail.com wrote:
> On Mar 17, 11:52 am, "ctj"
nospam.com> wrote:
>
>
>>> There are lies, damn lies, and then there statistics. Although I don't
>> know much about the Hmong Academy, I believe that the test scores that you
>> alluded to needs to be viewed within context.
>
>> Hmong Academy has just completed it second full term so it wouldn't be
>> fare to make comparisons with well established learning institutions.
>
>> Furthermore, most of the students the attend Hmong Academy, come from low
>> income families. According to "School Digger" 99%% of the students are
>> eligible for discounted/free lunch. I am also willing to bet that most of
>> the parents of these students have not been exposed to education prior to
>> 1975.
>
>> If you will take a look at the numbers presented by the site below, you
>> will note that this is the first year that data is available for reading
>> scores.
>
>> For math scores your can see that in 2006 only 6%% of the students met or
>> exceeded the standards. However, by 2007, in just one year, that scored
>> has jumped to 18%%, a 12%% increase. Can any other well established schools
>> boast this increase?
>
>
>> We shouldn't be so hard on ourselves and give credit were credit is due
>> for those who are trying.
>
>> Chong
>
>
> chong,
>
> I have had only a limited time prodding around, looking at, and
> visiting a few Hmong charter schools, when I first arrive in the Twin
> Cities some years back.
>
> (my whole life's been involved in middle and high school education.
> and I keep on working with middle and high school students, still, but
> in mostly private schools the past 8 years.)
>
> I have to be honest with you.... unfortunately, some of what I will
> say will not sit well with you (as the case should be, if you truly
> care about Hmong American education, which I am not... I am interested
> in young people's education, period. quality education, that is...
> That means, wherever I found myself, working with young people, I do
> my very best....I just don't happen to be working with Hmong, or for
> Hmong parents and their children, 'tis all....but I've had limited
> experience working in both capacities previously....)
>
> since I've moved to Minnesota, I've observed 4 charter schools. three
> out of the four were either run by Hmong or having at least 50 percent
> of the students being Hmong. the fourth one was run by a Hmong, but
> it was mostly African American kids. I don't think the principle made
> it for too long. it was an extremely tough inncercity little charter
> school, where both students and teachers (many) came and went,
> routinely, each year....
>
> if I were to have a kid, none of these charter schools would see my
> kid being enrolled, let's say.
>
> the funny thing is, I tried to apply for a job in ONE of them --- it's
> a creative, one-year deal job --- but they turned me down (didn't even
> tell me why! :o), so I thought, well, okay, I'll just stick to working
> with private school kids in Golden Valley, if that Hmong Academy
> didn't want me.
>
> (it was actually a good thing, as I would have wanted to do things
> very differently from how the school administrators would have wanted
> them done...And that would have forced them to fire me, or I would
> have left them anyway...)
>
> I agree with you on this: STATISTICS can be constructed in any way.
> those from the inside COULD and would make them seem like the kids
> have achieved leaps and bounds; those from the outside COULD make them
> seem like there's nothing going on.
>
> the fact of the matter is, there IS something going on, and most of
> those who are responsible for Hmong children in these Hmong academies
> DO work hard. "The best" they know how.... unfortunately, many of the
> ones in charge HAVE neither CLASSROOM EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND nor
> administratove experience. Or if they do, it's likely short and
> inconsequential.
>
> I know that in charter schools, the "founders" usually pay themselves
> good amounts of money, from the decent chunks the schools get from the
> city/state/fed.
>
> what troubles/puzzles me the most is the concept that there are
> actually "profit" to be made from the sums of money allocated through
> state formulas on per child allocation. and the founders DO make good
> money from these charter schools; they make quite a lot, if they also
> own the properties in which the schools are using! most charter
> schools need to hire "consulting firms" to help them, and a large
> chunk of the money fliew out the windows via those firms...
>
> I was involved, briefly, in a Frogtown area charter school a few years
> ago, when two parents brought a complaint against the founders, who
> happened to own the buildings the school used; fortunately, they were
> smart enough to use shell companies as owners of those buildings, so
> the money didn't to them directly. there were "prominent" Hmong who
> were "advisors" to those building owners/administrators. I have no
> idea whether there were cuts for those locally important Hmong
> "advisors"/"leaders", but knowing human nature, I would say there
> probably were......
>
> anyway, don't misunderstand me:
>
> I am not, I was not, bitter or anything. if any thing, I am sadden
> for Hmong parents and students. for those who don't have the
> education or awareness some of us do, when it comes to teaching and
> academics for secondary youth, that is.....
>
> personally, I am very happy working with private school students, most
> of whom are White kids, who come from very affluent families where I
> can charge them $50 to $70 an hour (so I could stop working after 20
> hours, in a week, becaues by nature I am very lazy and I need to rest
> of the time to think about the stars, flowers, dust, molecules,
> etc.).
>
> obviously, the parents and students I work with are affluent and
> educated, so it's not as if though they're stuck with me, an
> unqualified person working with their children....
>
> but those Hmong families and children in those half a dozen or so
> Hmong-affiliated charter schools in the Twin Cities..... they have no
> alternatives. not only are they not able to hire private tutors to
> help their kids in the academics, but most Hmong parents are not well
> educated enough to ask probing questions when it comes to questions
> such as the following, either:
>
> 1. resource allocation (towards specific tasks: "show me my kid is
> getting his share of the money's worth, being here in this charter
> school!," etc.),
> 2. proper and adequate administrator and teaching faculty, for
> SPECIFIC tasks, at the local site,
> 3. quality (breadth and depth) of cirriculum and teaching,
> 4. quality administrator and factulty hired from the outset (this is
> different from #2)
>
> #2 deals with "what could we do with what we've got at hand?"
>
> do you, as a parent, want someone who "rose" through the ranks of the
> public schools, partly or mostly, as a classified/admistrative person,
> to be running a school for your children? or do you want someone who
> graduated from Yale who's been a successful classroom teacher and
> administrator to be your school's administrators/founders?;
>
> #4 has to do with WHO becomes administrators (as I just noted a few
> breaths ago); how or what kind of educational background do they have;
> what are the quality of it?; and whether or not they have --- if we
> agree they are first calibre educators --- hired the properly trained
> staff and facutly?, etc.
>
> So, again, #2 and #4 are not the same things.
>
> so the question, for each of us, then, becomes "would I send me kid
> here, to this charter school, if I had one?"
>
> We need to be honest. disregard those statistics that can be
> construed any way.... juts answer that simple question....
>
> if you answer is, No, then there is something wrong with or not
> adequate about THESE CHARTER SCHOOLS....
>
> personally if I were to have a kid, none of these Hmong charter school
> would see him or her. first of all, if I were to have a kid, I would
> be able to teach him or her by myself (well, maybe not the first 3 or
> so years, as those are tough years!, which I have no clews as how to
> teach!, but lower middle school through high school?, when it comes to
> analyzing history, literature, and doing mathematics and science,,, no
> problem).
>
> for socialization purposes, he or she would go to a good public or a
> private one....
